Hello,
I recently found some government statistics that state that the total number of recorded crimes in the UK has fallen from just under 5.6million in 1992 to 4.1million in 2011. That means that, within 20 years, official crime rates have fallen by around 27%. During the same period, the prison population has risen from around 46,000 to just under 86,000 - an increase of 87%.
Naturally, this leads to the conclusion that more people are being sent to prison - but why?
Just under 50% of all sentenced prisoners are currently serving determinate (i.e. fixed tariff) sentences of less than 4 years. Once you take into account that most sentenced prisoners are released on licence half way through their tariff, this, in actual fact, means that most of these prisoners will actually be released back into the community after less than 2 years. Now, you already know what I think to these short-term sentences (see "Tougher community sentences: Will they work?"), but this post is about why more people are going to prison in the first place.
Violent and sexual offenders account for 42% of the prison population, with acquisitive offenders (those convicted of robbery, burglary and theft) making up 29%. 15% of prisoners are convicted of drug-related offences, whilst motoring and fraud offenders representing 1% and 2% of the total prison population, respectively. The remaining prison population is made up of offenders convicted for what the Ministry of Justice classify as "Other offences". This group is likely made up predominantly of those with public order related convictions. This final 11% of the prison population represents approximately 9,500 prisoners. According to recent BBC reports, the cost of keeping someone in prison is £47,000 p.a., meaning that it costs the taxpayer around £446.5million to keep those on short-sentences in prison.
So why are we sending these individuals to prison?
There seems to be a public demand for incarcerating individuals in order to "send a message" to others who may be tempted to commit offences. This demand is currently being pandered to by the Tory-led government, who pride themselves for being tough on crime and public disorder.
However, we know that trying to discourage others by making examples of known offenders does not cut crime. Take the example of the death penalty in the USA. In 2010, the murder rate per 100,000 people in State with the death penalty was 4.6, whilst in States without the death penalty the rate was just 2.9.
Statistics such as these should be relayed back to the public in order to relieve the pressure on judges and the government to sentence offenders to imprisonment. The National Probation Service spent £802million on supervising 121,691 community orders in 2006-2007, with an average cost of £6,632. If the 9,500 "other offences"-sentenced prisoners were subject to community orders as opposed to prison sentences, this could in theory save the public over £380million per year. Whilst, naturally, not all of these prisoners will be able to avoid prison sentences due to the severity of their crimes, there are substantial benefits to be had (both financially, and in terms of reduced reoffending rates) by switching sentences for lower-level crimes from prison- to community-based. The financial savings made could then be ploughed back into the justice system to train more probation workers and improve rehabilitation programmes for the prisoners who need them most.
So what do you think? Join in the debate by commenting on the post below, or indeed by following me on Twitter.
All the best,
Craig
No comments:
Post a Comment